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(Continued from page 6) 32-bit and 64-bit CPUs is performance. Per-
on the tool on the right side of the list to
open the web page for that station.
Use VLC Media Player
The free VLC Media Player program can
also be used to listen to radio stations
around the world.
This opens a long list of radio stations
around the world. You are on your own to
experiment to see if you can find something
interesting. After you open a radio broad-
cast, you can minimize VLC and keep it
running in the background while doing other
things on your computer.
32-bits, 64-bits – How
many do I need?
By Phil Sorrentino, Contributing Writer, The Comput-
er Club, FL January 2019
www.scccomputerclub.org
Philsorr (at) yahoo.com
Over the past few years, Personal Com-
puters have been moving from 32-bit Cen-
tral Processor Units (CPU) to 64-bit CPUs.
(Actually, 64-bit CPUs were first intro-
duced way back in 2003, but it takes time
to get new CPUs through the design/
manufacture/produce cycle to finally pro-
vide “affordable products”.) So it’s not a
matter of how many you need, it is a mat-
ter of what is on the market. From a user’s
point of view, the main difference between
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formance is basically the speed at which the
CPU can complete tasks and is measured in
calculations per second: the faster the CPU,
the higher the performance. Additionally, 64-
bit CPUs can come in dual, quad and eight
core versions which can provide further im-
provements in performance. Another differ-
ence is the maximum amount of RAM
memory that can be accessed. 32-bit CPUs
can access a maximum of 4 GB, whereas a
64-bit CPU can access far beyond 4 GB,
which is necessary if you are using software
to accomplish things like video editing or
graphic design. In general, the more bits you
have, the better the processing performance
and capability, and therefore the better your
computing experience.
The CPU defines the architecture. A 64-bit
CPU is used in a 64-bit architecture and a 32-
bit CPU is used in a 32-bit architecture. To-
day, almost all PCs are built around the 64-
bit architecture, giving you the best possible
computing experience if you only consider
the number of bits. (Other contributing factors
to your computing experience might be Inter-
net connection speed, display size, hard drive
size, and the number and speed of USB
ports.) The Operating System (OS) software
is intimately connected to the hardware archi-
tecture. That said, keep in mind that a com-
puter with a 64-bit architecture can have a 64
-bit OS or 32-bit OS installed; however, the
64-bit architecture with a 32-bit OS installed
will not provide the 64-bit architecture’s full
capability. Also note that the 32-bit architec-
ture can only run a 32-bit OS. Windows 10 is
built for the 64-bit architecture as was Win-
dows 7, unlike Windows XP and 95 which
were built for the 32-bit architecture.
A quick look in the rear-view mirror shows the
original PC that was released in 1981 by IBM.
This early PC was built around a 16-bit archi-
tecture which was quite a bit less capable
then our current 64-bit or 32-bit CPUs. (The
initial CPU was an 8088 which actually used
16 bits internally, but had an 8-bit Input/
Output (IO) interface (possibly to keep costs
down and possibly to interface to certain pe-
ripheral devices), making it a hybrid of sorts,
16 bits internally for calculations and 8 bits
(Continued on page 7)